A collection of blogs about identity safety, acceptance, and inclusion

anti-bullying strategies

Not In Our School (NIOS) is excited to publish this three-part series of three blogs about bullying in English and Spanish. In this first blog, we give an overview of bullying and share new NIOS Spanish materials. In the second blog, we share important information and useful resources on bullying from Spanish speaking countries. Finally, in our third series, we share the work of a Mexican anti-bullying activist.

Este blog también está disponible en español.

A student taking part in a NIOS workshop in Nicaragua
According to the 2012 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, Spanish is the most widely understood language in the Western Hemisphere, with significant populations of native Spanish speakers ranging from the southern tip of Patagonia to as far north as Canada. And in the United States, Spanish is the primary language spoken at home by 38.3 million people aged five or older, a figure more than double that of 1990. So, it is important to share NIOS films and lesson guides with the Spanish speaking world.

At a recent workshop, a principal shared a horrific story of a little 8-year-old girl who was bullied for being different. In this case, she was different because her family was not poor like the families of her classmates. So, they teased her every day. They threw things at her and pushed her. Although she did not tell anyone about what was happening to her, one day she took her parents’ gun out. Her plan was to take it to school and shoot the classmates who were tormenting her. Her parents discovered it and took the gun away, but her peers found out. That day they pelted her with stones and rocks until she had to be taken to the hospital, beaten and bloody.

This took place in a small rainforest village in the region around Rio San Juan, in Nicaragua. Recently, I had the privilege of giving two NIOS bullying prevention presentations there, one to students and another to educators. Although some of the participating schools were one-room schoolhouses, miles from the next town, both the youth and educators who attended were very familiar with bullying behaviors and were seeking solutions.

The kind of bullying that happened to this 8-year-old girl is not unlike some of the torments that happen to children everywhere. The girl’s peers claimed the reason they did it was that she was “stuck up.” Every day, children explain their cruel behavior with similar comments, like actor Christian Bale, bullied in England as a child because he was an actor; Rihanna from Barbados, bullied for her skin color and breasts; or a fifth grader in a California school where I worked as a principal, who nonchalantly told me he bullied a younger child simply because he had been bullied.

In Russia, like Nicaragua, the English word “bullying” is now being used because there is no fully comparable term. I wondered about other languages. After searching, I found a forum discussion about the word for “bully” in other languages. Different forum contributors indicated that Arabic, German, Hebrew, and French do not have exact translations for a specific word that means bullying. That caused the forum conversation participants to ponder if bullying was an American phenomenon and whether the US is making a word become a reality. The story of the Nicaraguan 8-year-old should put that theory to rest.

NIOS Director Becki Cohn-Vargas leads a workshop in Nicaragua
I believe that forms of bullying and intolerance have been around since the beginning of time. The difference now is that people across the world are recognizing it and doing something about it. With the little Nicaraguan girl, the school has gotten involved to not only help the girl and her family (who did end up changing schools), but also to work with her elementary peers.

Not In Our School is reaching out across the globe to share stories and materials in places like Hungary, Australia, Slovakia, and most recently in South Africa. We believe that this effort brings us together to make a difference and strengthens the work we are all doing. Do you have an international story? Please share it. It brings out the humanity in all of us.

As a way to share our materials with Spanish speaking countries and hispanic populations within the US, Not In Our School is now pleased to be translating our most popular films and lesson plans into Spanish. You can find our growing list of Spanish resources by clicking here.

PRIDE OF EL CASTILLO
By Dr. Becki Cohn-Vargas, Not In Our School Director

Upstanders come in many forms. We hear about those who lead movements for social justice, but rarely do we hear about the people who quietly live their lives and stand up just by the fortitude they show in staying the course against great odds. Yamil Obregón Bustos is one such person. I heard about him when I was traveling in Nicaragua.

Pride of El Castillo
Yamil Obregón Bustos
Yamil owns Border’s Coffee, a small cafe and restaurant in El Castillo, a beautiful town along the San Juan River in Nicaragua. El Castillo is a bucolic town with no cars and a historic fortress that draws people from around the world. I heard that Lonely Planet had visited his cafe, calling it the best coffee in the region. They also had written a piece, “El Castillo’s Dirty Little Secret,” referencing the harassment that Yamil experienced as a result of being the only openly gay person in his small town. Yamil has not only been subjected to hateful anti-gay slurs and threats, but also attempts to shut down his business.

I went to the cafe and had a delicious meal and some great coffee prepared by Yamil himself. Then I asked if I could interview him to share his story with our NIOT readers. What struck me the most was that he chose to live and run a business in the town of his birth in spite of the rampant homophobia. He could easily have ventured into a larger city where he would not be so visible and vulnerable.

Lonely Planet publicized his plight and also drew people to his El Castillo cafe in the historic Nicaraguan town. I titled this piece “Pride of El Castillo” in honor of his courage. Listen to him in his own words.

And if you’re ever in Nicaragua, make sure to check out his restaurant.

On the Day of Silence, we share with you the story of one middle school that provided the space for all of its students to have their voices heard.

“Forming a Gay Straight Alliance at a middle school requires courage—for the administrator to step up, for the teacher who serves as the advisor, and for each student who walks through that door to be a member.”

By Dr. Becki Cohn-Vargas, Not In Our School Director

My daughter knew she was gay from when she was a young girl, but it wasn’t until middle school that she told me. Not all young people have someone to talk to at that sensitive age.

At Hoover Middle School in the San Francisco Unified School District, teacher Janet Miller learned frightening statistics about her district’s Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) students at a district training. She discovered that transgender youth were the most likely students to attempt suicide. Impassioned, Janet explains that she got on a table and shouted to the staff, “It’s our job and the job of every single person in this room to enforce safety for all students, not just straight ones, so any time you are not doing it, you are not doing your job!” She convinced the staff that Hoover needed to do something about this serious issue.

Some educators feel middle school students are too young join a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA). Hoover principal Thomas Graven admitted he had never had a GSA at any of the middle schools where he had worked.

“When she proposed that we do so, I was very supportive of it, but I was also a little bit anxious about it because middle school is a time of great difficulty for kids with the transition into adolescence,” Graven said.

One of the first things they did was invite their own LGBTQ students to speak to the school staff. Teachers listened as students shared with great candor the painful experiences of being teased and harassed and the sad reality that when they approached their teachers, little was done.

With the principal’s support, Miller and students created the GSA, one of the first at a San Francisco middle school. The short film, “A Gay Straight Alliance Creates Unity and a Culture of Acceptance,” tells the story of how the student club not only impacted its members, but the entire school and staff at Hoover. Watch their story:

GSAs at middle schools are still a relatively rare phenomenon. At the Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota, the path to starting middle school GSAs was a painful one.

Until March 2012, Anoka-Hennepin District policy stated that “…staff, in the course of their professional duties, shall remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation including but not limited to student-led discussions.” The policy rendered Anoka-Hennepin teachers uncertain and afraid, so they stayed silent. The result meant that endemic anti-gay slurs and bullying of LGBTQ students were ignored, often with horrific results.

A string of nine local suicides over a two-year period included four students who were gay or perceived to be gay. One 15-year-old, who committed suicide after having been bullied for being perceived as gay had complained to her mother that classmates had started an “I Hate July Barrick” Facebook page. Anoka-Hennepin students described the daily harassment. Seeing this “neutrality” policy as a virtual gag order, students were left to fend for themselves in a toxic environment and filed a lawsuit last summer, stating that the District did not sufficiently protect LGBTQ students.

One result of the ongoing controversy in Anoka-Hennepin was that this year, for the first time, students initiated a GSA in every middle school in the district. When describing what the GSA meant to one student, he said, “In sixth grade, my only friend here committed suicide. . . . She was the one who reached out to me.. . . I joined the GSA ’cause I wanted to be just like her. I wanted to be nice and—loved.”

A GSA can give a voice and refuge to middle school students at a very important period of their lives. With opportunities for allies to become members, LGBTQ students come to feel they are not alone and that their friends will stand with them. This can send a message of acceptance across the entire school, not only those questioning their sexual orientation, but also those who don’t fit in the gender stereotypes or who might not fit in for other reasons.

Forming a GSA at a middle school requires courage—for the administrator to step up, for the teacher who serves as the advisor, and for each student who walks through that door to be a member. For many students, a GSA can be a lifeline and make a difference for young people that will last for the rest of their lives.